The band’s name is the same as a popular video game and the name of the album sounds like a Sepultura song. Safe bet that this is heavy as bricks metal. Farcry are a death/thrash metal band, part of the burgeoning extreme metal scene spawning in Eastern Europe. Formed in 2003 in Szeged Hungary, the band has endured a major lineup shift and released two demos prior to 2012’s SLAVES OF CHAOS, released on indie label Grom/Tmina Records.

Farcry’s brand of metal is technical, featuring staccato riffs, stop/start passages, and frenetic kick drumming. There is no subtlety, and not much harmony, just a blunt in-your-face heaviness that seeks to beat you into the ground without any chance of ever getting back up. Impressively, even in the ultra fast passages, you can hear the articulation and clean picking of the guitars, a sign of talent and precision. A trait of most heavy music production these days is to bury the bass so far back in the mix it is virtually not distinguishable. Another unimaginative trait is for the bass to mimic the guitar note for note. Not, Farcry, with bassist Patkós Péter featuring prominently and clearly in many of the songs. Vocally, Kis Tamas is less impressive, employing a style that is closer to black metal and unfortunately, the dreaded metalcore style rather than thrash or death metal vocals. There are some melodic and cleaner passages mixed within the rage that lean progressive and slower, but they are not numerous enough to offer respite or variety to the endless chromatic assaults.

On the whole, SLAVES OF CHAOS is professionally executed, well-produced and quite heavy. Granted, it offers nothing new or particularly distinctive. Fans of this style will have to ask if they need another capable, mid-tier extreme metal band in their collection, and if so give Farcry a fair chance. Fans of more traditional thrash metal will almost certainly want to avoid Farcry as this is falsely advertised as thrash, but instead is closer to black metal (with markedly better production), elements of death metal and metal core.